It’s an average Tuesday in early November, and Dale Maisano is doing what he does best. In a prison cell in Tucson, Arizona, Maisano writes by hand 14 single-page lawsuits, then mails them to a federal courthouse in Tennessee.

“Keep me out of the sun 100% of the time,” he demands in one lawsuit.

“Pay for my vision care for life,” he writes in another.

“Give us trillions in U.S. dollars for no care,” he says in a third.

Fourteen lawsuits in one day would be memorable for most people, but for Maisano, it barely a blip. Over the past three decades, Maisano has filed more than 9,400 civil rights lawsuits in federal court complaining about food and health care in prisons in Arizona.

Most of those lawsuits target Corizon Health, a prison health care company in Brentwood, and are therefore processed by the federal courthouse in downtown Nashville. Due to a standing court order, the vast majority of Maisano’s suits are dismissed in a matter of days, but their overwhelming volume still has a clear impact on courthouse operations.

Each of Maisano’s lawsuits arrives by mail, so court employees must individually scan his complaints and input them into the court’s electronic filing system. The court clerk’s office also opens a paper file for every lawsuit, then it is randomly assigned to a judge.

A handwritten lawsuit filed by Arizona prison inmate Dale Maisano demands "trillions" in payment for lackluster healthcare. Maisano has filed more than 9,400 lawsuits like this one in federal courts, including many in Nashville.(Photo: Federal court records)

This year alone, Maisano has sent the court more than 300 lawsuits — amounting to about 61 percent of all civil rights suits the court has received from self-represented inmates — said courthouse attorney Jennifer Hartsell Stockdale.

“We are putting the same amount of care and attention into every one of his cases, and because of the high volume, when it comes to impact, the math speaks for itself,” said Hartsell Stockdale.

"I don't have any delusions I'm going to get any money," Maisano told the Tennessean in 2014. “We're trying to get our point across."

The Arizona Department of Corrections has previously denied that there are any problems with Maisano’s food or health care. Martha Harbin, a spokeswoman for Corizon Health, noted in a statement that Maisano has never successfully sued the company.

“While we are thankful to live in a country where those who are incarcerated have access to the court system and the opportunity to have their voices heard," Harbin said, "we believe it’s important to note that very few of the thousands of lawsuits Mr. Maisano has filed naming Corizon Health were accepted by the courts and the few that were allowed to proceed have all been dismissed.”

Maisano is currently serving a 15-year sentence for aggravated assault, but his lawsuits began long before that. Maisano’s mass filing began in the early ‘90s when he filed 36 lawsuits in a federal court in Arizona, annoying a federal judge.

In court filings, District Judge Stephen McNamee said Maisano’s “often unintelligible” lawsuits were clearly intended to “harass the judicial system,” so McNamee issued a restraining order forbidding Maisano from filing any more lawsuits without first asking permission from the court.

The restraining order was intended to curb Maisano’s filing. It worked for nearly two decades, until 2009, when Maisano started ignoring the order and filing dozens of suits each year. His filing peaked in 2014 when he filed more than 3,600 suits — so many that it caused a noteworthy jump in prison lawsuits nationwide.

Maisano's lawsuits will likely end next year. He is scheduled for release in February.

Brett Kelman is the health care reporter for The Tennessean. He can be reached at 615-259-8287 or at brett.kelman@tennessean.com. Follow him on Twitter at @brettkelman.